Shaped Like Care tends to cause a degree discomfort in the audience whenever I read it which frankly is the way I think it should be, given the theme. It is also one of those poems where the deliberate lack of any gender clues really bothers some people and I have on occasion been questioned about the gender of the ‘characters’ in it. Sometimes, answering with ‘it doesn’t matter’ or ‘whatever you want’ only seems to aggravate the person asking even more.

Resolute is a rather personal poem and echoes the kind of melancholy introspection I almost always end up embroiled in when I go back to Finland.

The issue is full of some excellent poetry. Here are a some (quite a few actually!) personal favourites:

Boyhood of Senesino by Stephen Bone – A layered poem about a double-edged fame of an Italian castrato with a great line-break that made me raise my eyebrows at first before resolving in a more family-friend manner *g* You’ll know what I mean.

Rapture by Anthony Costello – There is something dark and claustrophobic about this that nicely captures the feeling of words crowding you

I’m pimping this for a friend and a very skilled story-teller, Jay Mountney. She has published another book that is very much worth a read for anyone interested in fantasy and/or mystery genre.

I will let the author explain the plot in her own words:

The story is the first in a series called The Skilled Investigators. The ‘heroine’ is a female elf who wants to be an investigator (detective in our terms) and has to solve a murder mystery before she can be accepted as a trainee. Her assistants/sidekicks are a teenage dragon who imprinted on her at hatching, and her brother. The brother is gay and provides the romance subplot for the series but there is no explicit sex.

Jay talks about the book and the planned series here – do go and check it out! Author is offering free review copies too!

I read the first draft of the book some years ago and enjoyed immensely, I can’t wait to read the final version! Just need to sort out a eReader app for my tablet…